


Why D Strider stopped wearing white suits

by AcrylicMist



Series: As things Happen-verse [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Assassination, Attempted Murder, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, But somehow he keeps surviving, Character Death, Dark, Extinction, Feels, Guns, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Torture, Literally everyone has tried to kill him at this point, Missing Scene, Murder, One Shot, Other, Violence, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22797583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcrylicMist/pseuds/AcrylicMist
Summary: This is the missing scene from my demonstuck AU and will make absolutely zero sense unless you read all of that part first. Fair warning.Seven years ago, movie director D Strider was famously gunned down on stage at his own awards show. This is what happens immediately afterwards.
Series: As things Happen-verse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1111113
Comments: 15
Kudos: 43





	Why D Strider stopped wearing white suits

**Author's Note:**

> This is the missing scene from my demonstuck AU and will make absolutely zero sense unless you read all of that part first. Fair warning. 
> 
> Seven years ago, movie director D Strider was famously gunned down on stage at his own awards show. This is what happens immediately afterwards.

The awards show had been going great, all things considered. D Strider didn’t exactly enjoy being in close proximity to the majority of Hollywood’s other bigshot movie stars and directors. Most of them either hated him fiercely enough to want him dead in a ditch somewhere or wanted to fuck him, and the transparency of their thoughts left little doubt as to which option all of his neighbors had settled on. 

The rival director that SBAHJ had beaten out for the majority of the cinema awards was still glaring at D from across the aisle, something hot in his eyes that wasn’t lust. As irritating as being thoroughly hated was, at least D could respect his rival for his honest hostility since it was based in being outdone and hopefully not out of anti-demon bigotry. Or was it? D stared closely at the other movie director, his eyes safely hidden behind his magic-dampening shades. Most people hated him simply on principle. Was it wishful thinking to hope for an honest rival? With the degree of hate in the man’s eyes D couldn’t really tell.

His name was called for another award, breaking him free of his thoughts as the Incubus shot the cameras and audience one of his million dollar smiles, instantly pulling the charming persona he wore for the cameras over himself in a single effortless second. It was the smile he practiced carefully in the mirror, open, honest, and only slightly sardonic without a hint of the sluttiness the media rightfully accused him of having. It was a thin line he walked, but D tread it expertly as he swaggered up to the awards table to claim another trophy for him and his production team.

It was the lack of warning that bothered D the most. In the past he’d always had a few seconds to brace himself or run before the danger reached him. This time it was different. There’d been no screams, no disturbances, and no one shouted ‘he’s got a gun!’

Which is why for the first few seconds D was mainly just confused when he felt the sharp, searing pain explode across his chest. The force of it knocked his breath out and he staggered to the side, clutching at the table beside him before his knees gave out and down he went, banging his skull hard enough against the edge of the table that his vision whited out. His ever-present and famous shades were knocked loose. Movie trophies scattered everywhere as he brought the table down with him. They glittered under the painfully bright lights. 

His brain registered the sound of multiple, fast-paced gunshots as an afterthought, because now he heard the screams, the general disturbance, someone yelling “he’s got a gun!”

D laid flat on his back, utterly stunned and in pain. There was what felt like a thousand pound weight on his chest and it hurt to breathe. He could taste his own blood in the back of his mouth. His hands were moving, trying to push himself upright, his fingers coated in something slippery. Beefy security guards and police were swarming the stage, waving weapons around and yelling as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. D only realized he’d been fucking shot when he looked down at himself and saw the blood staining the crisp, no longer pristine white of his expensive suit. And fuck, that was _a lot_ of blood. 

His eyes swam at the sight, and his arms gave out. He collapsed back onto the stage floor in a spreading pool of red, the hungry place inside of him roaring as the strength poured out of him. He couldn’t make out the pounding of his own heartbeat underneath the absolute mess of pain that was his chest, but since he was still actively having thoughts about how fucking much being pumped full of lead hurt, D had a good feeling he’d survive this unless the bullets were cursed or some shit. Incubi were made out of iron and stone. It’d take more than a few bullets to bleed him dry. 

D tried to get up again, his entire body screaming in pain, but he gritted his teeth and attempted to struggle upright through the shock of his injury because he knew the cameras were still rolling, knew this event was being broadcast to the world, and he knew that back at the house Dirk, Roxy, and Rose would be staring at the TV screen in horror and he _couldn’t_ let them see him like this. He couldn’t die like this, not here, not now, not where his family could see. 

He was stopped from standing by a policeman throwing himself down over the top of him, yelling “Stay down!” The man’s weight just made his chest hurt worse and he nearly blacked out. He looked over to see a mountain of police and security over the top of the gunman, subduing the attacker before he could reload and fire again. D let his head drop back to the ground, his mind oddly fuzzy.

The policeman on top of him was rapidly talking. D ignored him completely, content to float in the dizziness he was feeling until he felt the not-unfamiliar feeling of hands trying to strip him out of his jacket. His eyes flew open again, when had he closed them, and he surged upright with renewed vigor. Another cop joined the fray, kneeling beside him with his gun drawn. “Sir,” he said. “Sir, Strider, stay down. You’ve been hit.”

“I think I fucking know I’ve been hit,” D snapped angrily, and his voice was shaking but he had a handle on himself now and with the shooter down the demon knew he needed to get the hell out of here. The first cop was still trying to worm his hands under D’s jacket and not in a sexy way, trying to hold pressure on the worst of the wounds. D shrugged the guy off and tried to stand again.

“Sir, stay where you are,” the cop ordered him. “Backup is on the way.”

Backup. The idea was almost laughable. “I don’t need fucking backup,” D argued. “I need you to get the hell off of me.” He tried to stand again as both the cops threw their weight against him to keep him down, but even weak the Incubus was high on adrenaline and shock and the cops were human so he easily struggled to his feet. 

Blood immediately began to run down his legs, drawn by gravity from where it’d pooled at his chest. It was such an uncomfortable feeling, blood squishing in the soles of his shoes. The stage was chaos. People were still attempting to hide underneath their flimsy plastic chairs and the hundreds of people in the audience were huddled in groups for protection as law enforcement swarmed the area. He did a quick, worried headcount to make sure his production team was safe and unhurt and saw with relief that most of them looked fine health-wise. But they were all looking at him in fearful horror. Well, he knew he was liberally covered in blood like something out of a shitty horror flick so that made sense but it still sat wrong with him. It wasn’t until several tried to hide when he set eyes on them that he realized what was wrong. 

His shades were missing. His eyes were bare. 

Goddammit. 

And now the people he worked with every day were looking at him like he was the threat, not the gunman still screaming incoherently from the side of the stage. He still had to reach up and check for himself, surely rubbing blood all over his face as he felt for the sunglasses that weren’t there. He sighed and the exhale did nothing but make him cough up a mouthful of blood, racking painfully to wheeze in enough air to talk.

“Sir, stay where you are, you’ve been hit,” the not-so-helpful cop told him again, still trying to hold him back, his voice shocked as D tried to avoid eye contact with everyone around him, teetering upright on unsteady legs. He felt fucking sick. 

“Where’s my shades?” He asked, searching the ground around him, scattering fallen trophies with his feet as he hunted for them. The sheer amount of blood on the ground made him worry that he might not be as okay as he was trying to convince himself he was. His hands were shaking. The room was starting to go fuzzy at the edges and the overbearingly bright lights were hurting his uncovered eyes. Shades first, hospital second. Priorities—he had them. 

He spotted his beloved shades as they were gingerly picked up by a security guard about fifteen yards away. A cop must have kicked them across the stage or something, and in his haste to reach the glasses D accidentally flashstepped across the empty space between him and the guard, jittery and on-edge enough to lose hold on his careful human façade for a few seconds. The guard reared back when D suddenly appeared in front of him and his gun automatically came up like he’d shoot the demon a second time. 

This close D easily knocked the gun away as he stumbled to a halt, fingers tight around the barrel of the gun, muzzle pointed safely at the ceiling, reeling, fighting to keep his feet under him. His breath was coming in shallow pants. His ears were ringing as he let go of the gun once he was sure the guard wasn’t going to try and kill him. The man wordlessly handed over the shades and D hastily checked them over, but they were unscratched and whole. He slipped them immediately into place over his eyes and instantly felt a little bit better. Hopefully now no one else would try to shoot him out of mistaken self-defense. 

D took a deep breath and popped the collar of his jacket down, straightening his shoulders as he tried to reclaim any degree of control over the situation. But as he surveyed the rest of the stage, the crowds, the scattered cameramen, it slowly dawned on him that there was nothing he could say or do that would make this better. There was a wide berth of empty space around him where no one would come close, and D stood there in the middle of the stage covered in blood but still somehow upright and moving after taking several rounds to the chest. He was everything the humans feared. Not even his PR agent could fix this, not when everything was on video. The best thing he could do was leave.

He tried to grin, to shrug off the seriousness of the situation, but there was no cheering from the audience. Nothing but stunned silence and the whispers, pointing fingers, and mistrustful glares that cut him to the core.

D focused on putting one foot in front of the other as he made his way offstage, to the back of the house where no cameras could see him. It was much darker back here, quieter, and his head was pounding as he sagged against the wall. No one came after him, and that was good, he wanted to be alone. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this. 

He leaned against the wall and focused on breathing. In and out. In and out. Each breath felt like it shredded its way free of his chest. Standing was quickly becoming impossible as the walls around him spun.

Footsteps, someone running in high heels, and then there were hands on him. “Strider, Strider, D, can you hear me? D? D!”

He recognized this voice. “Hey, Miranda,” he choked out, trying and failing to smile at his agent. “I don’t think I can stand for much longer. Some motherfucker done shot me.”

“D, what the fuck?!?!” She scolded him the entire way down as his legs gave out. It was a slow descent in stages as he struggled to stay upright on legs that he could no longer feel. In the end gravity won and he collapsed, utterly exhausted and hurting. 

“Holy shit, holy shit, fuck, shit,” She knelt beside him, getting blood all over her power suit. There was a cell phone at her ear that she was talking rapidly into, on the line with paramedics and 911. “Yeah, I’ve got him. Jesus, it’s bad. It’s really bad. Hey,” she snapped her fingers in his face. “D, listen to me. Stay with me. Can you walk?”

“No,” he answered truthfully, and now that the adrenaline was wearing off the pain was settling into his bones. Tunnel vision was definitely a thing that was happening. 

“How many times were you hit?” She asked. 

“Don’t know,” he forced out, wheezing. “A lot.”

“I need a stretcher,” Miranda snapped into the phone. “Now! Before he fucking bleeds out!” 

D couldn’t feel the floor he was lying on anymore. He couldn’t breathe. There was something caught in his lungs, he could feel it inside him. He turned over onto his side just in time to start coughing, mouth wide open and gasping, hacking up what felt like his entire lung as he convulsed. Nothing but blood came up, pink and frothy.

“Jesus, D, snap out of it! Don’t you dare die on me!” His agent ordered, and she sounded so scared. 

He coughed again, his breath rattling, before he brought up what was stuck in him and spit it out into his hand along with a mouthful of blood. The small shape bounced against his palm. A bullet. A fucking bullet. 

He was done—he was fucking done. Some evil bastard had finally done it. Not even he could survive losing this much blood. 

“Holy fuck,” Miranda breathed out, and now the panic was setting in. “D? D, listen to me, hold on.”

“I’m not dying,” D lied. “Goddamn, getting shot hurts.” Everything got weird after that, kind of whited out until a stinging pain caught the side of his face and he blinked his eyes back open. “Did you just slap me?”

“You can’t pass out on me,” his agent ordered him. “Stay awake or I’ll slap you again.”

“Hmm,” D coughed again and forced himself to grin at the threat. “Kinky.”

She slapped him a second time but he didn’t feel it as much. His thoughts were drifting to Rose and Roxy and Dirk, and he had to survive this for them. He couldn’t die—he couldn’t leave Rose alone like that. 

He wasn’t really aware of much after that. He refused to lose consciousness because part of him knew that if he did he wouldn’t wake back up, but he wasn’t exactly aware either. He knew that one of the first EMT’s to reach him was a psychic because enough of those had attacked him in the past for him to recognize the staticky feel of their power against his skin as he was telekinetically lifted up. He didn’t fight it, couldn’t fight it. A part of him wondered how Miranda had found a hospital willing to treat him. First Baptist refused demon patients on principle and even the ones that did treat Daemon kind wouldn’t know shit about Incubi. He was a medical nightmare on a good day.

He heard the sirens too, felt the jolt as the ambulance screeched to a stop. He came to just enough to realize that the nurses had somehow succeeded in getting his ruined jacket off and had cut open his button up, revealing a bare chest that had more holes in it than what should be survivable. They were trying to keep desperate pressure on the gunshot wounds.

And then they were inside the hospital. The lights were bright again even through his shades. He squinted against the glare as a small army of medical practitioners swarmed him. They were saying things he couldn’t really make out and he couldn’t bring himself to care about anything other than taking his next labored breath. He felt so out of it until one of the nurses tried to stick a needle in his arm and his sense of self-preservation kicked back on just enough for him to snatch his arm away and hiss.

All the nurses went hands-off at the threatening sound like he was a dog that might bite. Shit, he hadn’t made a sound so blatantly demonic since he’d been a fucking kid, but god he was scared, he was so scared, and the sound just slipped out of him. Forming words was the most difficult thing in the world, but he managed it to some degree. “Don’t put anything in me.” The plea came out as a groan, and god only knew what shit was in that needle.

They were saying things, trying to reassure him, but D knew better than to trust human medicine. He knew of plenty of demons that’d been killed by mistake in hospitals by misinformed staff. They tried to take his arm again and he struggled weakly, pulling away until white sparks jumped into existence with the scent of burning ozone and pinned him down. 

That was when he really lost it. A lifetime’s worth of conditioned fear flooded him. The particular psychic wasn’t that powerful but D couldn’t break their mental grip in the state he was in. He couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, couldn’t get away. The needle went in.

Then everything faded to black. 

…  
…  
…

Waking up was surprisingly easy. He hurt too much to sleep, so he woke back up, rapidly blinking himself back to awareness. There was no muddling around in confusion—he knew exactly where he was and what had happened, and he was fucking pissed. 

The first thing he knew when he opened his eyes was that the doctors had left his shades on. The second was that he could feel IV lines attached to him so he immediately went to snatch those little fuckers out. Which is where he encountered the third thing.

He’d been handcuffed to the bedframe, not by like police handcuffs either. This was some chrome looking built into the steel frame type of thing that locked his hands in place all the way up to his elbows, wrist-up so that he could see the needles in him.

Oh hell no.

He wiggled his fingers, testing the strength of the locks. They didn’t budge, probably enchanted to be demon-proof. Shit. He still gave his arm a solid yank but only succeeded in bruising his wrist. He frowned. 

“You’re awake,” someone said.

“Let me go,” D answered automatically before his eyes even found the speaker. Young man, dark hair, wearing a doctor’s labcoat and setting aside a clipboard covered in papers.

“Nope,” the guy told him, coming closer to peer at him through a pair of bifocals. “I can’t have you pulling out any IV catheters. It was hard as shit even getting them in. Your blood pressure was so low that every time we hit a vein it collapsed on us.”

D only vaguely knew what those words meant. He kept looking around the room at the wall of screens and monitors hooked into him. It was creeping him the hell out. The doctor wasn’t alone either. There were two nurses in the room. One was watching the screens with a keen eye and the other was sorting through a mess of tools he didn’t know the names of but hoped weren't for him. 

“Do you know who you are?” The doctor asked him.

“Yes,” D answered. “And I know I’m at a hospital because some bigot used me for target practice.”

The doctor nodded along with him, flipping a page in his files. “Congratulations then,” he said. “It seems you’ve survived.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?” D asked, and he yanked at his restraints again, losing his patience. There was a clock on the wall. 10:38 pm. The awards show had been nearly three hours ago, so at least he hadn’t been out for long. But he felt suspiciously better for so little time to have passed. “What did you do to me?”

“Nothing yet,” the doctor answered, squinting at him curiously as he tapped at his clipboard. “You’re definitely not supposed to be awake, you know. That sedative was supposed to keep you down for a few more hours.”

The more the man talked the worse D felt. The pain was back and his mouth tasted like stale blood. He took a deep breath and heard it rattle dangerously through his chest. “What’s the damage?”

“You were shot seven times,” the doctor answered, way too chipper for the situation. “All bullets struck center mass but one, which is still stuck hanging out above your left hip. We managed to take a few X-rays but only counted six bullets.”

“I spit one up,” D deadpanned.

The doctor blinked at him. “Really?”

“Yeah,” D said. “Tasted like shit and hurt like a bitch.”

“Hmm,” the doctor said, coming closer. “Mind if I ask you a few questions then?”

“About what?”

“You,” the man said, and even though D wasn’t picking up on any thoughts from him or anyone else in the room, he felt uncomfortably watched. 

“Why?”

“Because according to your vitals, you’re already dead,” the doctor told him cheerfully. “You’ve got three bullets chilling in your lungs, one of which is fully collapsed, and a bullet carved a chunk out of the top of your heart. One hit a rib and shattered it too. You’ve lost around 83% of your blood, plus the one shot that went low turned your intestines to mush. All in all, by rights you should be downstairs in the morgue.”

“Lucky me,” D coughed again and brought up more thin, watery blood. He felt like microwaved death so the run down didn’t really surprise him. Everything on him hurt, but worse than the pain was the growing hunger he felt. Shit. The empty void lodged in his soul lashed at him and he felt his eyes flare from behind his shades.

“Don’t get me wrong, you still might die on us,” the doctor warned. “Everything inside you is utterly fucked and we don’t know how to fix it. All we’ve done so far is pump you full of blood substitute so your cells don’t start dying on us.” He tapped the clear bag hanging above D’s head. “You can thank our new medical magician for this, since you don’t have any sort of recognizable blood type.”

“Great,” he said. “Glad to find out after all these years that human vitals and medical logic don’t apply to me. Really, I had no idea.” He should really dial back the hostile sarcasm, these people were trying to help him, but now that he was aware of his hunger it was all he could think about, and he’d never been good at being hungry.

The doctor was too caught up in his professional scientific curiosity to notice his hands clench into fists. 

Then the door opened and a familiar face walked in, looking as equally pissed off as he felt.

“Hey again, Miranda,” he greeted her, then immediately began complaining. “I feel like shit.”

“You look like shit,” she shot back at him, hovering at his side. “If you ever try to fucking die on me again, I’m suing your ass for every penny I can get.”

“Sounds fair,” he nodded. “I should give you a raise. For emotional damages and all that bullshit.”

“We can work out how much money you owe me later,” she waved away his words with a scowl. “Right now I’m running damage control. Cindy in PR is throwing a fit. You’ve gone viral and not in a good way.”

“Sorry,” D apologized. “Next time I’ll try to get shot off-camera.”

She rolled her eyes. “You sure are joking a lot for someone mortally wounded.”

He shrugged and then regretted it as the motion tugged at all of his pain. “Honestly? As someone currently strapped to a bed and not even in a sexy way I think I’m entitled to a little humor at my own expense.” He considered her overwrought expression and asked softly, “Who was it?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at the floor. “We’re not sure yet.”

“I don’t think I know him,” D told her, recalling the shooter’s unfamiliar face. “Maybe he’s one of St. Joseph’s men. It’s been about a year since they mailed me my last pipe bomb. It’s about time for them to try something else.”

“Strider,” Miranda sighed, tapping her foot. “Can you be serious for a second?”

“Or maybe he’s mad at me because I fucked his wife or something,” D went on without pause. “It’s possible I let one slip past me at some point. I can normally spot a married woman from a hundred yards away and I avoid them like the fucking plague. No one else reeks with as much desperation as a housewife trying to have an illicit affair.” He grinned. “Man, I hope that’s why. I’m getting sick of people trying to kill me for piss-poor reasons. I feel like they’re overlooking all of the perfectly valid reasons why I deserve to die. It’s pissing me off.” He hesitated, eyebrows drawn together in consideration. “Or maybe I fucked him after all.”

“D,” Miranda sighed again, shaking her head. “He was yelling all kinds of shit as they carried him away about how all demons deserved to die. I’m pretty sure you’re off the hook for ruining his marriage.”

“Goddammit,” D frowned. “Was that supposed to make me feel better? Knowing that another person tried to murder me simply because I exist? I’d much rather have fucked his wife.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Miranda asked him, aghast. 

“Who fucking knows?” D answered her, leaning his head back, utterly exhausted. “I need to make a phone call.”

“Work can wait,” his agent reassured him. “I’ve already cleared your schedule for the next week so you can focus on recovering.”

“It’s not about work,” D forced out, and he coughed again, choking on his breath for a few seconds as spots blacked out his vision until he hacked up more of the blood that was trying to drown him from the inside out. The nurse watching him with hawk-like intensity held a rag below his chin for him to gag into and wiped the blood off his mouth when he was finished. He felt both helpless and disgusting. “I… I need to call my family.”

Miranda’s face was full of a patient understanding. “D,” she said gently. “How hard did you hit your head?”

“Pretty fucking hard,” he admitted. “Why?”

“D,” she said, kneeling so that she was level with him. “Your family’s dead, remember?”

He just stared at her blankly. 

She went on, trying to be gentle about it but completely missing the mark. “You remember that, right? Your family’s gone.”

Of course he remembered. His parents, his older brother, his little sister, everyone he’d lost over the years flashed through his mind just like the loss happened yesterday because grief doesn’t ever really go away. He cleared his battered throat, swallowing painfully. “I know,” he said, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “I wasn’t talking about them. I… I still have _some_ family left, you know?”

He’d surprised her, he could tell. He never talked about his family or his past, and the shock of the admittance on his assistant’s face was the undoing of years’ worth of secrets. 

“Please,” he asked, and he could picture their scared faces so clearly and that image hurt more than all the holes punched through his heart. “I need to call them. They probably think I’m dead.”

Miranda blinked at him wordlessly, but she pulled out her cellphone. “What number should I call?”

He shook his head. “I can’t tell you that,” D said, and he looked over at the doctor who still stood watching him like this was Intro to Incubi 101. It kinda pissed him off even more but sometimes he had to pick his battles. “Can you unlock me now that I’ve proved that I won’t start yanking out all these goddamn needles? For like five minutes?”

The doctor frowned at him. “We still need to get those bullets out of you,” he pointed out. “It’ll be safer for my staff if you remain immobilized.”

The idea that the hospital still saw him as a potential threat in this state was kind of humorous in a sad way. “I’m not going anywhere,” D argued. “I literally can’t fucking walk. Come on, Doc, even inmates get a phone call. Have a little heart.”

“Fine,” the doctor broke, shaking his head. “But only one arm. And the sunglasses stay on.”

D nodded his agreement. Shit, right then he would have agreed to most anything if it meant getting ahold of a cellphone. Plus as hungry as he was, he knew he was in no state to have his eyes aimed at anyone, much less aimed at what must have been the straightest male doctor in all of LA. Seriously, all this conversation and not a single dirty thought. It was kind of impressive actually, especially considering what shit he was getting from the two nurses, even as professional as they were being. D didn’t want to be responsible for fucking up the guy’s sexuality forever, so the shades were staying on. 

The doctor came closer to unlock the row of shackles holding down his right arm. D tried very hard to ignore the hunger lashing at him and instead thought about doughnuts. Junk food. Carbs. Anything that might take the edge off this awful hunger. He felt starved. Weak. Drained. He was hungry in a way that Olive Garden’s endless stuffed pasta wouldn’t cure. 

Which made him dangerous. Dangerous even though willpower was a thing he possessed and with all the sketchy shit he’d done before, the line of consent was a line he hadn’t ever crossed even at his lowest. A few bullet wounds weren’t about to change that fact either. 

The doctor finished the complicated task of unbuckling his arm and all but jumped back as soon as D had the limb free, like he was worried the demon would try and grab him or something. It would have hurt D’s feeling if he hadn’t gotten over the fact of mankind’s mistrust of him years ago. 

Miranda handed over the phone. D held it for a minute, trying to work out what he was going to say. “Can I have a minute of privacy?” He asked. 

“No.” The word came from three throats at once. Only Miranda stayed silent. Good. She definitely deserved that raise. 

“Figures,” D sighed, then entered the correct phone number from memory. It rang for too long, and then clicked over into voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message and called again, overly aware that everyone was watching him. This time someone picked up right at the end, a shaky, scared sounding voice that D instantly recognized.

“Hey, lil’ man,” D said as calmly as he could, the old nickname falling from his mouth even through Dirk was 14 now. “How’re you doing?”

He heard Dirk suck in his breath through the phone, and when he answered his voice was almost too-quiet, a question, too uncertain yet to hope. “Uncle D?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” D answered, choking back a cough that made him hold the phone away from him, trying to hide the sound of his pained retching from Dirk. “Listen, I don’t know what you saw on TV, but I’m fine, okay? I’m gonna be just fine.”

There was a clatter like Dirk had dropped the phone and the Incubus made out the sound of yelling, then Dirk was on the line again, breathless. “Holy shit, D, I thought you were dead. We thought you’d been killed. I-”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” D interrupted, trying not to cough again. “Are you alone? Is Roxanne there? Could you put your mom on the phone for me, please? Just for a minute? I’m not going anywhere, I swear.”

“No,” Dirk spoke too quickly, rushed. “She’s not here. She left as soon as she saw the news.”

It didn’t take much guesswork to figure out where she was heading, and D made up his mind to warn his home security that he had a furious in-law inbound. But that meant, “She left you alone?”

“No,” And now Dirk was on the defensive. “Roxy’s here. Rose too.”

“Dirk…” D groaned, trying not to be angry with him until the last thing he’d said sunk in. “Rose is there?”

“She’s upstairs,” Dirk said. “I just sent Roxy to get her. Jesus, D, she’s, when she saw…” His voice was breaking up and it wasn’t due to poor connection. 

Shit. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m alright,” he said, repeating reassurances that he wasn’t sure were true. “Could I speak to her?” The idea of Rose watching him die on screen was agonizing. It was a mistake that he had to set right immediately. 

Dirk swallowed thickly. “Yeah, of course,” he said. “Here she is.”

There was a slight crackle as the phone changed hands, and then the sound of Rose’s sobs reached him. The noise buried itself between his ribs, made a home out of guilt and regret where he couldn’t rip it out. “Rose?”

The crying only increased in volume, broken, gasping sobs, the kind it hurt to listen to. “Rose? Rose, can you hear me?”

He didn’t get an answer, but he kept talking anyway. “Rose, it’s okay. I’m alive. I’m still alive. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry you had to see that and I know it hurts, I know you’re scared, but it’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay.” He made it a promise, repeating his new mantra until the crying began at last to calm down, just letting her hear his voice and know he was still here. That she hadn’t been left alone.

“Don’t… Don’t you EVER do that to me again,” Rose demanded, and he’d never heard an eleven year old sound so fierce while actively crying. 

He didn’t promise her that he wouldn’t, because that would have been cruel, but he did keep reassuring her that he was okay. “Rose, I’m sorry, it’s okay. I’m okay. You’re okay.”

“Where are you?” Rose asked, her voice trembling.

“Uh, hospital,” D said, though he had no idea which one. “It might be a few days before I get home, but I’m pretty sure the worst has passed. The bullets weren’t cursed or anything. I’ll recover.”

She didn’t ask him how bad it was, how close it had gotten. He didn’t want her to know. “The media is telling everybody you’re dead,” Rose told him tearfully. 

“Lies and slander,” he joked. “They only wish I was dead. I look forward to proving them wrong. Maybe I can even sue them for jumping the gun. How does that sound?” It was getting harder to think clearly. The walls were spinning again. “Could you please tell Roxy to get ahold of her mom for me? The last thing we need to deal with is Roxanne on the warpath.”

That earned a small giggle from her, but she was still sniffling. “Are you going to hang up soon?”

He wanted to say no but another coughing fit interrupted him. He could feel blood running down his chin.

“D?” Rose asked, and she sounded scared again.

“I’m okay,” D answered automatically. “I’m just a little beat up is all. I’ll be good as new in no time.” He heard Roxy trying to butt into the phone call, speaking excitedly, overjoyed. “Tell Roxy I love her too,” He asked, and he was breathless. Out of air. The weight was back on his chest, suffocating him. “I love all of you so much, you know that right?” It was imperative that he tell them he loved them. He didn’t have many people left to love, and one of his biggest regrets was not saying those words enough to the family members he’d lost. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again. “You hear me, Rose? I love you so much.”

“I know,” Rose answered him, and he could hear her scrubbing at her face to wipe away the tears. “You know we love you too.”

And he did know that. That’s the truth that kept him going, the reason why he hadn’t bled out onstage. “I know,” he said softly. “I’ll try to call you again soon, okay? Don’t call this number back—it isn’t safe.”

“Okay,” Rose promised, and she hung up before he could. He immediately deleted all evidence of the call. He was probably being paranoid, but brushes with death tended to spike his overprotectiveness up to eleven. He handed the phone back to his assistant. “Thank you.”

There was no doubt that Miranda had heard most of the call. He tried to put her mind at ease. “What?” he asked, raising one pale eyebrow even though she couldn’t see it. “Does it surprise you that I’m an uncle?”

“Kind of,” Miranda admitted tentatively, unsure of how to phrase her next question. D answered before she could ask it, playing damage control.

“Don’t worry,” he said, trying to lean back and settle into the uncomfortable bed he was strapped to. “I’m not blood related to them. They’re human.” It was mostly not a lie, with one huge exception, but Rose’s existence was something no one else could know about. 

“Oh,” Miranda said, and he wasn’t sure how to categorize her reaction as either relief or disappointment. 

“Pity,” the doctor said dispassionately, flipping through his notes. “Another Incubus would prove most helpful in trying to figure out how to keep you alive.”

D didn’t answer, but Miranda immediately brightened.

“That’s right!” she said, nodding. “D, don’t you know other Incubi? Couldn’t they help?”

D froze. She sounded so hopeful. It was painful to hear, but she kept going. “Isn’t there that girl in France? And that couple down in Chile?”

His mind flashed back to a snowy mountain lake, a small cabin hidden on its shores, the breadth of the open valley stretched before him like an unfurled blanket of greenery, flowers everywhere, its lonely vantage point protecting the demon and his wife that lived there, safe from the rest of the world until one year he’d flown back to see them, landed an amphibious plane on the lake only to find an incendiary ward cast around the square of black soot where the house once stood. The hostile magic was still strong enough weeks later to scorch his skin, and the rocks that had once formed the foundation had melted into glass. The wildflowers had withered. 

He remembered talking on the phone regularly to a young woman in France who shared his white hair and red eyes. He’d known her parents even, one of the last old bloodlines of his kind until a mob took them out and left her all alone. But she’d recovered. Found love. Married even, and D had been so impressed with her stubborn hope for a better future that he’d bought into her vision for a while, especially after she’d had her son, a beautiful, perfect baby, and he dared to think that maybe he wouldn’t be the last after all, that she would built a new future for their kind until a team of hitmen brought that dream crashing down.

There were others too. Scarce, scattered demons like him, distant cousins, family friends, their numbers dwindling like lights blinking out one by one until there was nothing left but darkness. 

He leveled a blank glare at Miranda’s hopeful face, and his voice was pained. “That question’s five years too late,” he said, and his eyes were stinging furiously from unshed tears that he refused to let fall. “They’re all dead.”

She blinked, her hopeful expression fracturing. “What?”

“They’re gone,” D said, and his voice cracked. “Every Incubus I’ve ever known has been killed. I…I,” he couldn’t say it, couldn’t admit it, terrified of speaking the truth and naming the fear he felt. 

Miranda seemed to guess anyway. She looked at him with new eyes, and he hated the awareness he saw there. “You’re an endling.”

He’d heard that word before, referencing turtles and rhino and a host of other doomed species. It meant the last of the last, the very final end of a legacy of decline. “You know,” he said, gulping. “Legend says there were once 72 different demon species. I always thought that was utter bullshit, but we do have proof of a handful of demon types that died out, pushed past the point of extinction by human persecution.”

Miranda was shaking her head, rejecting it. “That can’t be true,” she argued. 

“Humans have always hated us the most,” D argued back, and his heart felt hollow as he was confronted with the one topic he tried to avoid the most simply because thinking about it made him want to cry. “Why? Because we take what’s natural, what you’ve named shameful, _sinful_ , inventing new words just to justify your own anger, twisting the one thing all people share beyond recognition just to name us the bad guys? Because you named our strength and eyes evil and unnatural even as mankind developed magic for the sole purpose of wiping us out? Mankind developed psychics and telekenetics to defend themselves against the so-called ‘demon hordes’ and get praised even when historically those ‘gifts’ have been used for untold genocide?” He shook his head, swallowing back his instinctive anger. “And what have we ever done? What have _I_ ever done? A man tried to kill me tonight just because I exist. Was it justified? Did I deserve that?” He shook his head again, squeezing his eyes shut to hold in his tears. “I’ve never hurt anyone. None of us did. That fact doesn’t matter though, because human fear outweighs the truth. I’ve never done anything that wasn’t freely asked for. I’ve never controlled anyone, forced them, taken their will away, but that doesn’t matter because all people see when they look at me is something different, something dangerous, something that can’t be allowed to live.”

He looked at the assistant who’d been loyal to him for years, the doctor who’d broken hospital policy just to try and bring him back, the two nurses who had taken a vow to do no harm to any person, demons included, and said, “I know that’s not all humans. I know all of you aren’t evil, that most people care and have at least a basic grasp on compassion, that the world is changing, that things are getting better for Daemon kind, shit, there’s new laws protecting us every day, increasing equality everywhere, and I’m so, so happy for that, so happy for all the demons that’ll get to live in this bright new world we’re fighting to build, but at the same time? I can’t help but weep for myself, for my _entire fucking species_ , because for us… the world didn’t change fast enough.”

He had to cut off his rant to cough again, chest heaving as he fought for air, gagging at the taste of his own blood in his mouth until he brought up another bullet and spit it into his hand, proof that at least his body was trying to patch itself back together. “There,” he said darkly, and the small metal slug shone from his bloody palm. “One less bullet you’ll have to dig out of me.”

The doctor slipped on a glove before he took the offered bullet, holding it up to his eyes to study it. “Small caliber, can’t tell which,” he said, his voice hushed. “Brass, not lead. Unusual to see in a small caliber shot.” He set the bullet down on the metal table beside him. “I’ve dug enough of these things out of people to get familiar with the basics.”

Miranda was still kneeling next to him. She slowly reached out and laid her hand on his arm, the one that was still strapped down so that he couldn’t snatch himself away from her touch. His arm tensed before he realized that he wasn’t feeling anything through her touch except for the gentle pressure of her fingers. There wasn’t anything sexual about it. She was just trying to comfort him, and he relaxed. It was such a small thing, but right then it meant the world to him.

“I didn’t know you were the last,” she told him. “I can’t imagine what that must feel like.”

He wasn’t the last, not yet, not with Rose alive, but specifics like that didn’t matter. His species was done for. “It feels like shit. It’s worse than getting shot. It’s the kind of wound that will never go away.”

“You’ve never told me about your family,” she said.

D thought about them. About the older brother who’d raised him after they’d lost their parents until a lucky psychic had beheaded him at the ripe old age of 19. About how his brother told the best jokes and knew how to fix the best pancakes and could name all of the stars in the sky. About his sister who wanted to write books with whole worlds pressed between their pages and always wore a pen behind her ear in case inspiration struck. About the hundreds of sticky notes she’d left behind, bits of sentences and ideas that he’d poured over for months, the fading scraps of her genius worthless without her hand to bring them to life. About the good-hearted human dumbass she’d fallen in love with, a carpenter D had teased mercilessly for years until he’d stood over the man’s body and seen the bruises that covered his knuckles, the blood caught under his nails, proof that the man had gone down fighting for his wife in a way that made D wish he could take it all back. 

He couldn’t say any of this out loud. He’d lost so much. “All I have left are human in laws,” he said, carefully omitting Rose’s existence. “But I’ll tell you something very few people know.” He paused, making sure that he wanted to let go of one of his secrets. Goddamn, being faced with his own demise sure made him sentimental. “My sister? We kept this a secret from the world to keep them safe, but… she had a son.”

He could feel Miranda’s shock. Her fingers stilled on his arm. He went on, his eyes carefully fixed on the ceiling. “She named him Dave, after me, can you believe that?”

“Oh, D,” Miranda sighed, horrified. “No.”

“He was only six years old,” D said, and his voice broke. “I saw what they did to my sister, how they’d mutilated her. They cut out her eyes and wrote curses into her skin so strong and so foul that the marks blinded me for days after I identified her body.”

He looked at the doctor again, his shoulders shaking. “I’m sure you couldn’t help but notice on X-ray that I’ve shattered nearly every bone I have at some point,” he said, explaining it. “Five story drop onto concrete. I jumped out a window after magicians started flinging curses at me. Barely survived.” He held his free hand up to his heart, feeling the old scars there. “Here’s where a psychic controlling multiple knives tried to cut out my heart. I was even blown up once. Stabbed. Poisoned. This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot, or the third. I’ve lived through it all. I guess I’m just a stubborn bastard like that,” he said, and now he couldn’t help the tears that ran down his face. “I’d trade it all away in an instant if it would bring that little boy back.”

Miranda was crying in earnest now, ruining her mascara as she wiped at her eyes.

“The reason I’m telling you this,” D said, struggling to get the words out. “Is because we never found his body. Just a lot of blood. So there’s a chance, a stubborn, desperate fool’s hope that he’s alive out there somewhere. And its stupid to hope for such a thing when death’s the only mercy here, but I can’t give up. I have to keep looking for him.” He fixed his assistant with the most serious, pleading look her could without removing his shades. “I can’t give up hope that one day, if he’s still alive, Dave will get free. He’ll escape. He’ll _survive_. And if some lucky son of a bitch manages to kill me in the future before that happens, then you have to promise me that you’ll look out for him.” Miranda was already nodding, swearing it, but D wasn’t finished yet. “You can’t forget him. If I’m gone, someone has to remember him.”

There was a beeping from the watch around the Doctor’s wrist, interrupting D’s tearful words. The Incubus sobered up instantly, pulling himself together. 

“Hmm,” the doctor clicked away a message on his watch, frowning. “The specialist I sent for just arrived.”

“What specialist?” D asked, instantly suspicious. 

“You, sir,” the doctor told him, “unfortunately need surgery. Lots of it. Immediately.”

“Bullshit,” D protested. "I’m already feeling much better. Pretty sure the worst of the bleeding’s stopped too.”

“Not what I’m worried about, actually,” the doctor said, still clicking away at his watch. “Don’t forget you’ve ruptured your gut. That’s going to need repair if you want to avoid dying of sepsis, plus we have to fish the rest of those bullets out of you.”

“And?” D asked, sensing the man wasn’t finished.

“And we can’t safely knock you out again,” the doctor continued cheerfully. “The drug we used before your metabolism burnt up in under two hours, and that’s when you were mostly dead too. Now that you’ve got some color back to your skin and have hopefully stopped bleeding internally I’m sure you’ll run through any drug we try to give you. And of course we can’t risk you waking up in the middle of a procedure for obvious safety reasons.”

D wasn’t an idiot; he could see where this was going. “No,” he said, “I refuse.”

“This way it’ll be much safer for you,” the doctor tried to convince him. 

“Did you just miss what was basically my entire life story just then?” D asked, incredulous that this was even an option. “Did you miss all the places where magicians have fucked me up?”

“It’s just a simple sleep spell,” the doctor reassured him. “We’ve used it on multiple demons before. It’s quite safe.”

“No,” D all but growled out, his hands in fists. “I won’t have someone fucking around with my mind like that. I’d rather take my chances with the sepsis.”

“D, please,” Miranda asked. “We’re trying to help you.”

D pictured Rose waiting for his next phone call. He pictured Roxy and Dirk huddled together, waiting for news of him. He imagined Roxanne grinding her axe as she sped towards LA like a bat out of hell. He had to get better for them. He had to survive this for them, for the ghost of Dave that haunted his dreams. 

The fight went out of him. He just felt tired. These had been some of the longest five hours of his life. “Fine,” he breathed out. “Whatever. I just hope it’s a damn good magician you’ve found, because I’m sure I’ll put up an unconscious resistance. Fair warning.”

“Consider us warned,” the doctor acknowledged, and he spoke into his smart watch. “Bring her in.”

D couldn’t help but tense as the stranger walked into the room. She was shorter, with gray hair hacked short around her head and surprisingly buff arms revealed by the short sleeves of her scrub top. 

She got right to work, peering at him intently. “Don’t worry about me, dear,” the witch told him, cracking her knuckles. “I’ve been ace as hell for over fifty years and in the business of putting people to sleep for just as long. You’re in good hands.”

“Damn,” D said, impressed despite himself. He couldn’t help but like this woman a little. She was like a tiny, buff magical grandma. 

The witch pulled out a blank white card from her pocket and began to draw a complex diagram across its face. The symbol moved over itself, constantly shifting in a way that made D deeply nervous.

“This won’t hurt a bit,” the witch promised him, finishing her design. 

“That’s not the part that worries me,” D told her, obediently lowering his free hand back to the shackle so the doctor could lock him in again so he wouldn’t hurt anyone if he flailed before the spell knocked him out.

“What part does?” The witch asked him.

“The idea of not waking back up,” D said, shuddering. 

The woman waved away his concerns. “Never happened to me before,” she reassured him, approaching him with the card in hand. “Are you ready?”

He braced himself, his hands in fists. “Hit me.”

The witch gently slapped the card down over his forehead, just above his shades, and the instant the mark she’d drawn touched his skin D felt a mental fist strike at the core of his mind. Every muscle tensed, stiffening with instinctive terror as he tried to snatch his head away. Hands held him down, saying, “Relax. Relax. Don’t fight it, you’re okay. Just relax.”

He was losing track of himself, rapidly drowning in the wave of darkness that washed over him. The oppressive magic was overwhelming; he couldn’t fight this. The sleeping spell unwound him from his desperate awareness until his eyes flickered unwillingly closed.

And he knew no more.

**Author's Note:**

> We all know the story from here. This was just a scene I could not get out of me head, the final puzzle piece from this universe that fills in all the gaps the other parts left out. D survives, makes a full recovery, survives a few more assassination attempts, falls in love, finds Dave alive and well, and gets his happily ever after in ways he never even dared to imagine. There is a happy ending for him, even if its not at this moment. He was always the unsung victim of the story, so it's good to take a look at his character and know that in the end, everything works out in the best of ways.


End file.
